Office of the Historian

894.24/763: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, December 30, 1939—noon.
[Received December 30—9:10 a.m.]

717. 1. The Foreign Office informed me yesterday evening that it was instructing the Japanese Ambassador at Washington to protest to the Department against the “moral embargo” laid down in the Department’s [Page 558] reported statement of December 2050 on the shipment to Japan of aluminum, molybdenum, gasoline51 and patented processes for the manufacture thereof, on the ground that such embargo infringes the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation. The Foreign Office asked at the same time whether I could see my way clear to recommending that such embargo be withdrawn as it is certain to affect adversely the current conversations looking toward improvement of American-Japanese relations.

2. The Foreign Office explained that no official Japanese cognizance had been taken of the Department’s previous action in respect of airplanes and munitions which was put on humanitarian grounds, as protest on the basis of treaty provisions would have seemed “too legalistic”. The recent American action, however, is stated to be based on military requirements, and if no objection were entered by Japan the list of interdicted commodities might well be extended indefinitely by further moral embargoes. Further, Japanese firms had made payments in the United States against contracts for the supply of embargoed goods and nonfulfillment of contracts would cause “much inconvenience.”

3. Reply was made to the Foreign Office that presumably the Department’s action was taken after careful consideration of all involved factors and that I could not make the recommendation requested.

4. It is my opinion, however, that the Japanese Government’s representations, when made public here, might well cause an unfavorable popular reaction in Japan and thus render even more problematical the chances of achieving constructive results through the present conversations.

Grew
  1. See press release issued by the Department of State, December 15, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 202.↩
  2. Gasoline was not included; the Department so informed the Embassy in Japan in telegram No. 4, January 3, 1940, 7 p.m.↩